Just a Girl

Slaying pay, planet, public broadcasting, and KiwiSaver contributions.

Oh, I'm just a girl, living in captivity
Your rule of thumb makes me worrisome
Oh, I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?
What I've succumbed to is making me numb
Oh, I'm just a girl, my apologies
What I've become is so burdensome
Oh, I'm just a girl, lucky me
Twiddle-dum, there's no comparison

Writer(s): Gwen Stefani, Thomas Dumont.

After all, she’s just a girl, standing in front of the old boys club, and asking them to love her

Morena, all, well, it’s the day after the budget, and I’m still furious.

This morning, I’d like to examine a few more aspects of the budget, having covered the behemoth in the room last night - specifically, the fact that this budget is funded by continuing to underpay women.

If you missed that one, which was only sent to paying subscribers, it’s open and here:

Before I move to other areas, I thought Julie Anne Genter from the Greens made an excellent point, saying, “Does anyone seriously believe we were at risk of paying teachers, care and support workers, librarians, hospice workers and others in female-dominated industries too much?”

There it is, eh?

Despite all the hand-wringing from the right and their supporting commentariat, claiming that the current fair pay regime has gone too far, nobody was seriously arguing that we’d end up with these positions being overpaid.

Nobody was raising concerns that people would stop being lawyers or GPs to live it up on the salary of a care worker or a library assistant once these claims were settled.

Although that would be good.

Because, in a few years, many of the functions currently undertaken by lawyers or GPs will be performed by AI. However, we’ll still need human beings as carers and hospice workers - although I wouldn’t put it past ACT to try to use robots.

It’s an awful lot of money, Clint Smith, Former Senior Policy & Communications Strategist for Jacinda Ardern, ran the numbers:

I feel sick thinking of the difference that $340 a week would make to the lives of those women and their families. I don’t understand how Nicola Willis can stand there and deliver that as a woman or as a human being. Does she genuinely think that if they spin it hard enough, people will believe there were good reasons for doing this?

Ongoing underpay will only accelerate the number of people heading for the airport. Nicola Willis has told essential workers seeking a fair deal that their future lies across the ditch.

I listened to Barbara Edmonds on RNZ this morning, and what a contrast with the Finance Minister. She gets it, and was unequivocal that Labour would reverse these changes and is committed to pay equity.

It’s the planet, stoopid.

This budget wasn’t only a setback for women; it also relegated climate change to the back of the bus.

From RNZ:

“The Budget sets aside $200 million to invest in fossil fuel development at gas fields, reduces climate finance to the Pacific, and reduces funds for government agencies working on energy savings and climate change. It also scraps $56 million specifically for electric buses.”

As Julie Anne points out, they must have low expectations of our intelligence.

A cargo cult mentality that if we enable those at the top to do well, if we prioritise the economy over the environment, the government will finally have the money to pay for all the nice things we want, like cancer drugs.

It’s nonsense. All that happens is we’ll trash the environment, and the profits will be shipped overseas.

Needless to say, the woke folks at Greenpeace were not impressed, saying, “The Government should be doubling down on action to cut emissions, not dumping public money into more fossil fuel extraction.”

Image: Greenpeace.

Retirement savings.

The government's narrative has centred on the necessity of this budget, acknowledging there are precious few benefits this year, but claiming it will pay off sometime in a decade or two.

So that’s nice, but also complete nonsense.

Popular wisdom is that in the coming years, the government will have to address the cost of universal superannuation in a population that is living longer. National’s policy is to increase the age of eligibility to 67 gradually. I see a couple of issues with this.

Firstly, do they not see the advances in AI? I cannot overstate the changes that will occur in the nature of work over the next decade, with far fewer human beings required to complete current tasks.

Secondly, if your budget is focused on setting the country up for the future, and we believe something needs to be done about the cost of super, then why would you make changes to KiwiSaver that result in people having tens of thousands less in savings when they reach retirement age?

From the first of July, National has halved the government contribution - again.

You may recall that when Labour introduced the scheme in 2007, the government would match contributions up to $1,000 per year and also kick-start savings with an initial $1,000. It wasn’t much of a savings scheme compared to what our Aussie cousins had across the ditch, nor was it compulsory, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing. Thank you, Helen Clark and Michael Cullen.

Then in 2015, the Key government axed the kick-start and halved the annual contribution to $520 per year.

Now, a decade later, National have halved it again, down to just $260 per year. They’ve also introduced means testing, meaning that if you earn above $180k, you get nothing at all.

I’m not expecting much in the way of a miniature violin concerto for these high-income earners, but—and this is a big but—this is very much the thin end of the wedge in introducing means-testing. It makes you wonder what other payments or even services the government might means-test in future years, perhaps even Super itself, breaking a longstanding contract with the people of Aotearoa.

This change means that people will enter retirement with tens of thousands of dollars less in savings than they would have otherwise, which doesn’t seem to be looking to the future to me. The government would counter that an increase in employer/employee contributions will cover that, but that’s just a tax increase by another name, especially for the self-employed.

Forget the spin - the government is going to contribute less while you contribute more - it’s as simple as that.

It’s all very well to say times are tight, but we’ll be better off in a decade or two. The reality is we’re borrowing from the future to fund this budget by cutting contributions from the government, limiting our future options on superannuation - unless, of course, we’re happy for old people to be hungry and homeless.

Best keep us dumb.

There is little economic benefit from educating the public in a world where AI will provide the brain power. It certainly doesn’t benefit the people making these changes to have people well-informed, so amidst the other nonsense yesterday, was this insult.

I wrote:

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate these bastards? They want to keep their supporters dumb and uninformed, and it's all in plain sight. Listen to Uncle Mike, plebs, he'll tell you it's all going to plan...

For a better take from the media I thought Stuff did a good job:

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With the writer’s festival, Te Pāti Māori suspensions, and this hideous budget, it feels like a very long week. I might find something light for tomorrow, just for a breather.

Have a great day, folks. If you’d like to help keep newsletters like this available to all, please consider subscribing. Thank you for reading, and you’re welcome to share this.

Ngā mihi,
Nick.

To end today, it’s No Doubt with Just a Girl.